


The Prince

by Storyshark2005



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 17:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14675754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storyshark2005/pseuds/Storyshark2005
Summary: Richard needs to think. Gavin has a pool.-This is pretty short, but I wanted to go ahead and post. Keep an eye out, I'll keep adding!





	The Prince

 

 

 

 

> _“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”_  
>  _-Niccolò Machiavelli_
> 
>  
> 
>  

***

 

 

“What are you doing?”

Richard looks up at Gavin, shoes and socks discarded on the stone pavers, saltwater up to his ankles. He’s been on the phone since buzzing Richard through the gate, irritation visible in the dip between his eyebrows. The sun was kissing the horizon, it was nearly 9pm.

“Um. Swimming?”

“You swim fully clothed?” the edges of Gavin’s voice are prickly. The conversation hadn’t gone well, then.

“Well, not really swimming, I’m walking. Pool-walking, I guess. I don’t know if that’s a thing, or...I mean I’m not really...” he shakes his head, thoughts akimbo. “It’s not for recreation. It just...helps me think.” He gestures helpfully to his notebook and pen, sitting near his shoes.

“So you were planning on spending the rest of the evening in wet pants?”

“Oh. Um, I dunno. I was going to use our pool, but Jian Yang’s friends were playing water polo or, something. Er, his _friends_ ’ friends. So I thought I’d just come here-”

“Richard. Stop talking. And dry your feet off before you come inside.” Gavin strides back to the house, and Richard’s already following before he can muster a protest.

They pass through the solarium (it’s a fucking sunroom) floored in bamboo, walled in with double-pane glass, and Richard grabs a towel from a built-in shelf, one hand braced against the wall for balance, bending down to towel off his bare feet.

He catches Gavin on the stairs, and realizes he hasn’t ever been up from the main floor, his time here the past few weeks relegated to the living-room and kitchen, and occasionally the bathroom. They walk down a hardwood hallway, down another hallway, and finally, into a bedroom.

The carpet here is soft, and Richard digs his toes down, looking up and around.

“Is this your room?” he steps over to a case full of books, mostly eastern philosophy, Lao Tzu, a biography on Steve Jobs, a copy of _The Art of War_ \- and disturbingly, a well-creased copy of Machiavelli’s _The Prince_. Richard pulls it out, runs his index finger over an underlined passage, something about foxes and lions.

“What does it look like, of course it’s my fucking room. Here, try these.”

Richard manages to catch the flying material, one finger still bookmarking Machiavelli. “Sure it’s not your _fucking_ room?” he snorts a little at his own joke, which Gavin pointedly ignores, and studies the shorts.

“Are these yours?” he holds them up, stretching them experimentally.

“They were Bryce’s, he’s about your size.”

“Oh, _fuck no_ -”

“What’s the problem?”

“Why in the _fuck_ \- do you have a pair of Blood Boy’s swimming trunks in your fucking sock drawer, Gavin?”

Gavin looks murderous, then closes his eyes and does that counting thing, rolling the beaded bracelet between his fingertips. Richard waits, biting the inside of his cheek, and contemplates making a run for it. But Gavin had made this fancy baked eggplant dish for dinner, which sounded way better than the paper bowl full of ramen and MSG sitting on his shelf in the incubator.

“Richard. You can either get the fuck out of my house, or you can get some work done tonight. Neither of those options involves you dripping water from wet pants all over my fucking sofa. You can take the shorts, or the door. Your choice.”

“Well, I mean, that’s fine. But don’t you have any other shorts? Like...yours, maybe? Or...” he trails off, and the transformation in Gavin’s face is terrifying. He looks delighted.

“Why yes, Richard. I certainly do.” he walks back to the dresser.

Gavin’s smile is predatorial.

***

So Richard ends up pacing around the shallow end of Gavin Belson’s fancy saltwater pool, wearing a pair of ludicrous-looking, mid-thigh length tight black shorts.

It was sort of nice, though. Liberating, his mind freely spinning with possibilities of a global, decentralized network, body grounded down and sliding cleanly through the salt-crisp water, unhampered by the drag of chlorinated, water-logged khakis.

He kept his shirt on though. He wasn’t a total douchebag.

He takes a break for dinner, they eat outside, and Richard puts his feet up on the adjacent chair, toes clinging to the edge, plate in his lap. The eggplant-thing is fantastic. Gavin makes fun of him all through dinner, but brings his laptop outside so he can work and Richard can still bounce ideas off him from the pool.

Gavin takes a call, pacing the length of the pool. He stops, listening to the voice on the other end, but Richard feels his eyes, and turns to look up, pen between his lips.

Gavin’s eyes drop to the pen.

“Uh...right. Right. No, I’m with you. Keep going.”

The voice on the other end prattles on, and Gavin resumes pacing, eyes firmly focused ahead.

Richard takes the pen out of his mouth. Something clicks in his head, and low in his gut.

He considers the fox.

***


End file.
